The Assassination Affair - Holly J Hunter - Страница 19

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Solo said out of his enforced blindness, "Didn't Mada tell you?"

"She told me. I want to make you an offer. As Chief Enforcement Agent, you must know all of the U.N.C.L.E. agents. And more important, you know their personal habits. Tell me what you know. Give me names, descriptions, and ideas of where they're likely to be found when they're off duty."

"In exchange for what?" Solo asked.

"A quick death."

Solo didn't waver for a second. He didn't know what was facing him, but he wasn't about to betray his friends, to set them up for ambush at restaurants, nightclubs, or their homes. This was the crux of Adams' plan. Names and places. "Uh-uh," Solo said.

"I must have those names!" Adams shouted close to his ear. "I have declared war on U.N.C.L.E. I'm going to prove that I, alone, can do what Thrush hasn't been able to do. Dundee may smirk at me now, but wait until he sees how I have destroyed U.N.C.L.E. single-handed."

Solo laughed a short, quick chuckle, clutching at the name, Dundee. So, it was all of one piece. And with Adams involved, the "chemical - plant" that had baffled them must mean vegetation.

"Don't laugh," Adams shouted again. "My war is going well. I've won the first battle."

Solo felt the rope about his throat, about his elbows, and the manacles on his wrists. "So you have."

"And you, Mr. Solo, are going to die. I want your death and I want those names. I say you can't endure what I have planned. No man can because I've plotted it both physically and psychologically. You'll give me the names before you die. I'll be back to check on you and you'll talk. Or - you'll be too insane to make sense. This I can promise."

"You've already had my answer. Let's get on with it."

Adams again placed his hands on Solo's shoulders and turned him about with a grunt of disgust, aiming him, then holding him steady. Solo heard the door that had remained closed being opened. "Mr. Solo," Adams said, "the door into the main part of the house is directly in front of you. Through it you'll find a large dining room and a larger parlor. The front door is to the right at the end of the parlor. Life is that way. Try for it."

The hands left Solo's shoulders and he fought to balance himself in the dark. As his body signaled it was standing straight, he heard the clumping of feet leaving him, picking out Julius' oversized thump easily. Adams' voice came from in front of him, a few feet away. "Walk a straight line, Mr. Solo, and don't get turned about. Household accidents are wicked things. They can actually kill a man. Goodbye."

The feet moved again and there was a strange shuffling sound as though they were edging sideways through the door. They retreated further, another door opened, feet moved, and the other door closed. Everything was deathly quiet.

Solo stood still, wanting even the sound of his breathing to stop so he might hear the noises of the house. But his breathing came deep and harsh, the breathing of fear. There wasn't anything to hear anyway. He was alone inside an unknown booby-trap, tied and blindfolded.

He thought for quick dark moments of trying the back door in spite of the pit, but knew instinctively that Adams would have locked it against that chance. Then his mind played fleetingly with the idea of simply waiting until Adams tired of the game and tried some thing else. That wouldn't do, either. He had to get the information back to Mr. Waverly that his hope had been answered and it was a lunatic with an assassination scheme and not a new Thrush policy. He had to get that information out before the conscientious old man curtailed part of U.N.C.L.E.'s operations in the face of a Thrush plot that didn't exist.

He forced his numb legs to move forward, feeling with his right toe. There was nothing in the way. But he was hesitant to take a step in the black dark. He took it. Nothing happened. He brought his left foot forward carefully and took another step. Still nothing happened. He moved a little more boldly, estimating the distance to the dining room door. He thought he must be there.

A slight difference in the silent pressure on his ears told him he was. He swung his right foot and found solid wood. Bringing it back to the left, he found empty space. It was the door, then. He was ready to tackle it.

His groping fingers touched wood. He was headed into the door jamb on the right. He pressed ahead, felt the wood with his fingers - and then felt something else. A sharpness met his hands. He felt along it carefully, recognizing it. A knife. It was solidly fastened to the right door jamb. He smiled to himself in the dark. One obstacle met and conquered. He stepped into the door way, moving to the left to avoid the knife, centered himself - and was attacked from the left.

A startled cry escaped from him as the knife blade attached at the left sank its razor edge through his coat, his shirt, and two inches into his left arm. He was caught on the damned thing. He had to get off. If he went to the right, the other knife would stab him.

Painfully angling his body, he avoided the first knife, feeling it slide harmlessly along his right sleeve. Then he jerked straight away from the one in his left arm and came loose from it. Warm moisture followed in the wake of the steel, but he knew it wasn't too bad. He hoped it wasn't too bad. If it had hit an artery, the whole ordeal would soon be over, so there was no sense in worrying about it.

He halted to gather his courage and his strength. What else was facing him in the blackness, he didn't know, and wasn't in any hurry to discover.

Chapter 7

"A Do-It-Yourself Murder Scene"

ILLYA KURYAKIN stood at the far side of the round table, Mr. Waverly beside him, and stared across at the cowering figure of Mada Adams. She stayed glued to her chair, shaking, her face cascaded by trails of tears. Illya felt no compassion for her. His own arm was in a sling, the pain annulled by local anesthetic, the bullet wound closed. But Napoleon was out in the dark somewhere, partly because of this woman. She had to be forced to tell them where. They had already spent forty-five minutes on her interrogation and they had gotten nowhere.

Mada looked at Illya, a new tear following the others down her cheek. "You're frightening me! I know what you do up here. Don't you dare touch me!"

Illya made his voice low and cold. "If you know what we do up here, then tell us what we have to know before we start on you."

He caught Mr. Waverly's frown. The older man didn't like such threats; he never allowed them to pass. But this time even he kept silent.

"I can't tell you!" Mada cried. "I can't inform on my own uncle. Not after all he's done for me." Her head bobbed back and forth from Illya to Waverly, frantically searching for some sign of tenderness. "He never told me anything, anyway. He suggested that I take a job here, yes. He also told me not to mention his name on my application."

"And when the security investigation was made on you, he was conveniently out of town, I understand," Waverly said.

"That's right. There was nothing to link us together. He's just a distant relative, not a real uncle at all. We seldom saw each other. It was mostly phone calls and letters - and a lawyer handled all the money he gave me for my education."

"Don't play the innocent," Illya badgered her, keeping her going, keeping the tears streaming. "You knew he worked for Thrush. You passed him information."

"Only little pieces. And not for Thrush., either. I didn't see what it would hurt. An address - a routine assignment - the grapevine knew all those things. They weren't classified."

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